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Archive for August 17th, 2011

PM Najib proposed to form the PSC to bring about electoral reform yesterday-but his claim that the Malaysian election system is still OK, despite being criticised by all academic and neutral observers as unfair, shows that he had not even started to admit the existence of a serious credibility problem! If there is no prblems then what is there to reform? In similar vein Home Minister Hishamuddin claim, one hand that the PSC will look into the issue of foreigners being given voting rights, and on another claim that the issue is a `non-sense’ from the Opposition. Denying the existence of a problems mean that there is no political will to address what everyone else see as big problems in the electoral system!

If there is no sign of any recognition of electoral weakness what could have motivated the announcement of a PSC for electoral reform? Comparing to the last PSC on integrity it is clear that a PSC can be initiated without any political will to bring about any changes. The PSC on intergrity was headed by Sabahan MP Bernard Dompok who gave up his position after the various government department refused to cooperate with his PSC. Similarly with a BN -from top to bottom, denying any problems in the electoral system, despite a huge mobilisation by citizens from across the country, it means that the proposed PSC on electoral reform could end up like the previous PSC on integrity!